BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - UAB had an opening on its 2014 football schedule and reached out to the place where most of its football coaches came from.

UAB's 2014 game at Arkansas was recently announced when the SEC confirmed its 2014 schedules. UAB will play at Arkansas on Oct. 25 and at Mississippi State on Sept. 6 in 2014 and will host Troy on Aug. 30 and Alabama A&M on Sept. 13. Head coach Garrick McGee spent four years at Arkansas before coming to UAB after the 2011 season.

"I felt like it would be a great homecoming for Garrick," UAB director of athletics Brian Mackin said. "I think he's well-thought of in Arkansas. We reached out to them and ended up solidifying it here recently."

Mackin said it is a one-time game.

Mackin said McGee was all for it, and that he and McGee discuss scheduling regularly. The UAB philosophy for this year and next was to play one big buy game, one lower buy game, a home-and-home with Troy and host an FCS game.

This year, the bigger buy game is at LSU and the lower buy game is at Vanderbilt. Next year, Arkansas is the bigger payday.

The only confirmed game for beyond 2014 is a 2015 buy game at Tennessee. Mackin recently said that, at a Conference USA meeting with school Presidents, scheduling was a big topic of discussion. After the College Football Playoff begins in 2014, the highest-ranked school in the Group of Five (American Athletic, Conference USA, Sun Belt, Mountain West, Mid-American) will get selected into a bigger bowl that is not part of the playoff rotation.

"How many buy games do you play per year? Do you schedule one with the chance of going 3-1 non-conference versus 1-3 and you've got your eight conference games," Mackin said. "Do you go into the conference 4-0, 3-1 and give your team a chance to compete in the playoff."

Mackin and Troy athletics director John Hartwell are still discussing the future of the UAB-Troy series, which is slated to end after 2014. The schools could continue or take a two-year break, Mackin said.

UAB hosts FCS schools Northwestern State (2013) and Alabama A&M (2014), but could go away from that if the opportunity arises.

"If we can look at home and homes and save the money we were having to pay the FCS and make it an opponent that we might have had a rivalry with in the past, like a Memphis, someone in that American Athletic Conference now, (we'd look at it)," Mackin said. "And save that money you're having to pay the FCS."

But when asked about Memphis, Mackin said there had been more talks about resuming a basketball series than football.